JD
1946
Well, Away did not get picked up for a second season anyway.
Gladguy
1947
Ugh. I just want it removed from my “continue watching” queue. What a disappointment…
I am, however, greatly enjoying Ratched. It is connected to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest tangentially at best. If you go in expecting an origin story, you’ll be disappointed. What it is, on the other hand, is a Hitchcockian thriller with some great performances by some great actors, together with great camera work.
My girlfriend and I just finished the first (and so far only) season of Evil and quite liked it. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely the old network procedural format case of the week sort of thing, but it’s got a great cast (particularly Michael Emerson as an evil psychologist(/demon?) who’s messing with them) and a pretty strong premise - our main characters are a small team of assessors for the Catholic church, looking into reported possessions, miracles and so on to determine if there is cause for an exorcism or other Church involvement or if it’s purely secular fare. Most putatively supernatural phenomenon they investigate have a rational explanation of some sort, but it’s not necessarily clear if that is the correct explanation, and there are some things that so far are not easily explainable. It’s also very of the moment, for better or worse. Virtual assistants, AR goggles, reality TV ghost hunters, incel communities and more all feature in various episodes.
My big quibbles are a) characters not sharing important info with each other, which isn’t constant but happens too often, and b) the show has a weird way of just kind of dropping things that feel like they would have come up again - for example, someone they were investigating commits suicide at one point…this is not followed up on at all, even to have the principals react to it. Or there’s an antagonist in a later episode who disappears when she’s revealed…and that’s it. She’s never come up again. One comment I saw said this contributed to a certain dreamy or unreal sensation to the show, and so it might be deliberate, which I can buy. It also (and I like this) elides stuff that other shows might show in a clearly deliberate way that in some cases feels like they’re cutting filler and in other cases leaves things hinted at rather than explicit. Lots of cutting directly to the female lead producing some evidence or ally or something without bothering to go through the motions of having her procure it (we can assume it) but also things like, well…no. It’s too spoilery to give as an example.
So…not The Best Show Ever ™, but a fun ride while it lasts with some interesting angles and strong performances.
rshetts
1950
I liked Evil. As you said its not a groundbreaking show but it is fun and has its moments. Well, except for one episode which almost totally derailed the series. Fortunately, they stamped out any lingering effects from that episode and moved on from it.
Evil has a great cast, with eh-so-so writing.
Devin gives a Lawyerly review of Chicago 7:
I just finished Barbarians on Netflix, a German import set during the Roman occupation of Germania that centers around three characters who were friends as children until one of them (the village leader’s son) was taken off to Rome as a hostage to insure peace. 15 years later he returns with the legions occupying the area and drama ensues, culminating in a version of the Battle of Teutoberg Forest.
It wasn’t terrible despite the poor English dubbing that was almost comical at times in it’s delivery. I did find it interesting and kind of nice that they decided not to dub the Romans, who spoke Latin throughout, and instead just replaced the German subtitles with English subtitles for all the Roman dialog. I don’t think I have ever watched a show that was both dubbed and subtitled at the same time! Since it was produced in Germany they did a decent job representing several of the Germanic tribes of the era, and they did a great job with the details on the Roman encampment, equipment and behavior. The ending felt a bit rushed, but it did tie things up fairly well while still leaving room for a second season.
It’s only six 45-minute episodes, so I’d recommend it for a weekend binge if you’re bored and enjoy wholly predictable drama set in nicely detailed historical settings.
Wait… is that why the closed captioning kept claiming the Germans were speaking English?
orald
1955
Just finished the eighth episode of To The Lake, a Russian show about a pandemic that breaks out in Moscow and a group of people fleeing to an island in a remote lake to ride things out.
If you can tolerate watching a show about a pandemic I recommend it.
Razgon
1956
I’m watching this as well, but in German, since yeah - the English dubbing was horrible!
It was actually pretty interesting, and some decent acting all the way through.
We tried watching it. The acting was so terrible we gave up after the first episode. The big-shot father and mother and daughter are just dreadful.
Menzo
1959
Big Mouth Season 4 is available now!
JD
1960
Yay. I’m enjoying the “[…] that made us” series on NF. Wish the new spin-off had more than 2 episodes though.
Movies That Made Us is the reason why I finally got around to watching Dirty Dancing. (I had seen the rest of the movies they covered already).
Looks like the two Holiday movies they cover are Nightmare Before Christmas and Elf. So I’ll use this as an excuse to finally see Nightmare Before Christmas. I’ve been meaning to see that since it came out.
Are you referring to the NatGeo one from a few years back, with alternating drama and real science interview segments? Or did that not have French involvement?
No, I’m talking about Missions (not sure what it was called in French).
So when is he actually going to pay back the IRS fully?
Those smuggled dinosaur skulls don’t pay for themselves.
